18. December 2022

The earliest form of football has actually been recognized by FIFA as the Chinese game of Cuju or Tsu' Chu (蹴鞠), dating back to the 3rd century BC. A competitive form of Cuju was already used then as fitness training for soldiers, while other forms were played for entertainment.

10. October 2022

My Dear, or Měilì (美丽牌) meaning “beautiful” in Chinese, was the most popular Chinese cigarette brand out of Shanghai during Republican China. Since its inception it was famous for the attractive, confident and modern “new women” featured in its advertisements, ubiquitous across billboards, magazines and newspapers. Its Chinese slogan 有美皆备，无丽不臻 literally means “everyone wants the beauty because without beauty there is no completeness” but in more creative...

22. August 2022

Hatamen brand cigarette cards depicting early 20th century Chinese beauties. Such trading cards were inserted in cigarette packaging as collectibles to drive brand loyalty.

03. August 2022

Pinhead was the first US American cigarette brand introduced in China. Its manufacturer was W. Duke, Sons & Co founded in 1871 by Washington Duke in Durham, North Carolina. As early as June 1882 W. Duke and Sons sent their salesman Richard H. Wright on a nineteen-month tour around the world to place their company’s tobacco in key export centers and its products may have already reached China by then.

22. July 2022

Probably our favorite panorama of Old Shanghai from our collection: an illustration from Harpers Weekly, September 12, 1900. Also an amazing reminder on how developed both the Bund on the Puxi side, as well as the Pudong side were already at that time. From a viewpoint most likely on top of the American Cigarette Company Co factory, on the Pudong side, we can see the building of the British Cigarette Company Ltd to the left (BAT was only established in 1902), on the right the Pootung Hotel, the...

06. June 2022

A kerosene lamp branded by Lockwood Bros, Pampa, Sheffield and Shanghai Rex & Co (公发英行 - "Kung-Fah" ). From the MOFBA collection.

22. May 2022

The brand by British manufacturer W.D. & H.O. Wills was one of the first machine-made Western cigarettes introduced to the Chinese market in the late 20th century. When British American Tobacco (BAT) was formed in 1902 it took over all the assets and brand rights for China from Wills and would turn Ruby Queen into one of the most recognized and successful tobacco brands in the first Republic of China. At one point in the 1920s Ruby Queen would even become the second most popular cigarette...

11. April 2022

The Cycle brand was created in the early 1900s during the days of the American Bicycle Boom - a no-brainer for Big Tobacco to associate itself with the corresponding health benefits. In China Cycle was distributed by Enterprise Tobacco Co, Ltd. (和泰烟有限公司), part of the British American Tobacco (BAT) cigarette behemoth. The Chinese name is a direct translation using the now old-fashioned term 自由车, which translates to any sort of bike but comes with a nice spin as the literal...

04. April 2022

"Sometime ago a foreign company, started a vast million-dollar campaign to boost its brand into the Chinese market. For months there appeared not only in all papers but also in Chinese general storekeepers, restaurants, theatres, and public amusement grounds large advertisements depicting a ponderous Chinese character (烤) with a circle encircling it. There was no effort to explain that lone character (烤), which stood for "toasted", and led one to wonder whether it was meant for toasted pork...

29. March 2022

1940s letterpress printing block for "Great Dreadnaught" (大无畏) batteries advert. From the MOFBA collection